The questioning of the dichotomous relation between local and global knowledges, seen from the point of view of the interaction between "traditional" medicine and other spaces of production of medical knowledge, is the main focus of analysis in this chapter.

Often, the discourse about "rival knowledges" presents modern knowledge systems, such as biomedicine, as globalized forms of the imposition of knowledges. As a consequence, "other" forms of production of health are declassified as localisms, which is the case of traditional medicine. The alternative hypothesis discussed in this chapter centers on the argument that the so-called "traditional" forms and practices of knowledge have in fact the status of legitimate knowledge, reaffirmed both by the extreme vitality of traditional therapists and by the increasing frequency of patients, even in urban environments.

The research shows the development of a medical hybridization in Mozambique, which includes the modern medical model, even creating space for its performance. This hybrid system exemplifies the coexistence, in the social field, of therapeutic institutions that treat disease when they simultaneously treat society, either when these treatments guarantee the reproduction and the maintenance of order, or when they disturb it. The constellation of distinct knowledges that becomes constituted by the different therapeutic realities enables a reinforcement of their performance and simultaneously a greater mutual control. This mosaic of knowledges emerges as warranty of the permanence of an open dialogue in progress, as a form of democratic exercise, which gives it its emancipatory quality.